Kent West wrote: > I picked up Dori Smith's "Java for the World Wide Web" book at the > library the other day; thought I'd at least introduce myself to the > basics of Java programming. I am not a programmer; just did the usual > college class work in the basic languages (Pascal, Fortran, BASIC), and > then a smallish app or two in C. (And of course, WordPerfect's macro > language back "in the day" :-) > > However, as I started to download the SDK from Sun's web site, it > started bothering me more and more that Sun's license is such that it > prevents Debian from including it as part of the distro. I'm not sure of > all the issues; I just know that in order to be part of Debian, it must > be "Free Software", and apparently Sun's SDK doesn't fit. As a result, I > decided not to download the SDK, and thus to give up on learning Java. I > know that I'm probably in the minority, placing philosophy above > practicality, but it's just the principle of the thing. I'm not > completely averse to using non-Free software, but I decided I didn't > want to contribute to the use/development of non-free programming languages. > > I'm just curious; do other folks (particularly real developers, not just > tinkerer-wanna-be's like myself) have a similar problem with Java, or > have I just been channeling too much RMS lately?
No, you haven't been smoking too much RMS. Java is not an open standard; it is controlled entirely by Sun, for Sun's benefit. I'll leave other comments I might make about Java as a language for another day, since I don't think it's relevant to your question. Craig -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
